


the darkness calls us to our doom and we follow to the end

by agentx13



Category: Marvel
Genre: Gen, Horror, Nothing explicit, hints of relationships, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28221312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: A young woman goes missing in the woods; her two friends report ghostly figures in their cabin and voices trying to lure them into the woods. With the park's history of rescue volunteers going missing, Steve and the team are called in to find the woman before a blizzard strikes.What they find is more powerful than they could have imagined.Separated, lost, and hunted, they might not make it out alive.Sequel towe walk the knife edge with the voices of the dead.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Kudos: 8
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Another request from Irene! Arguably the toughest one I've written this year, so I might... do another. Eventually.
> 
> Also, I keep forgetting to add this, but you can help choose the prompts for next year's Sharon Carter Month [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1goHBjj2uGHsi5JVNTwyxcFecFHwsTkSPIbtbZKe7eQ0/edit)!

The night is silent.

Jennifer Williams sits up in her sleeping bag. The cabin she and her two friends rented is cold, and if there were enough light to see by, she knows she’d be able to watch her breath cloud before her face.

She shivers and looks around, trying to pinpoint what woke her. Ah. One of her friends woke up and is standing nearby. She can’t see who it is, Laurel or Mags, but she recognizes the human shape that’s darker than the darkness around it.

She yawns and shifts, searching for the edges of her sleeping bag so she can bundle up again.

Laurel or Mags, whichever one it is, doesn’t move. They stand there like a creep, silent and still.

“What are you doing?” Jennifer murmurs. There’s no answer. They only stand there mutely and stare at her. “God, you’re so weird.”

She turns over and prepares to go to sleep, only for the door to slam open and the sound of feet to hit the wooden floor, a muffled giggle as a flashlight swings haphazardly across the room. She sits up. Laurel and Mags are there, arm and arm, their actions haphazard as they try to warm themselves. “What the hell, guys?”

“Mags had to use the outhouse and didn’t want to go alone.” Laurel sets the flashlight down. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Not that- weren’t you-” She looks at where the dark figure had been, but nothing’s there now. She shakes her head and rubs her eyes. “Nothing. I guess I was tired.”

“Wait,” Mags says quickly. “Did you see the ghost?”

Laurel blows a raspberry. “Yeah. Because every old cabin in the woods is old.”

Mags’ mirth disappears. “Don’t mock the dead, Laurel,” her voice deeply serious. The corner of her lips twitches upward as she tries to maintain her serious attitude and fails. “It’s thanks to them and the rumors that they haunt this place that we got this cabin so cheap!”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Are you sure it didn’t have anything to do with the lack of running water and electricity?”

“That, too,” Mags agrees. She steps toward her sleeping bag, and Jennifer and Laurel freeze, their expressions a mixture of shock and surprise as they stare at the space Mags had just vacated. “What?”

“Keep going,” Jennifer whispers. “Move.” She pulls her feet from her sleeping bag. “Get your shoes on.”

“What are you talking about?” Mags asks nervously. She turns to try and find what they see, and she jumps away from the dark humanoid figure at her shoulder. “What the fuck is that!”

The front and back doors of the cabin slam open, and Jennifer doesn’t think she’s one of the people screaming, but she also isn’t sure. “Run!” she shouts. 

Whatever it is, it doesn’t want them here.

* * *

“There’s still a good chance she’s alive,” the ranger says into the phone. “But we don’t have the resources to find her. Especially at night.”

“But the other two were found.”

“They made it to a road. In pajamas and shoes, not even any coats. Almost had hypothermia. Said the whole time they were making their way here, people were calling them to come back into the woods. But I don’t like our odds of finding the third girl before the snowstorm sets in. And I don’t think she can survive that.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” the voice on the other end says.

* * *

Even in the late morning, the woods are shadowed. High trees blot out the sun from above, tall mountains block the light from the sides. The air is cold and due to get colder – a blizzard is predicted to hit within three days. Which means the six of them only have three days to find one person in a national park larger than some countries. All told, the wooded and mountainous area is roughly 800 square miles. Some of the older portions, such as the cabin Jennifer Williams disappeared from, are miles away from the parking lot in order to make them harder to vandalize and promote the rugged, outdoor aesthetic.

Bucky glances around them. The trees are too thick to allow much brush to flourish around them, but in the dim light, he can see patches of grass and hardier plants making an attempt at survival. If the light is poor now, he knows it will be impossible to see when the sun falls. Likely even before that. “No bird sounds,” he notes.

“Smart birds,” Sam says.

“It _does_ make it eerie, though.” Sharon briefly studies the trees around them. After several missions together, they’ve fallen into a pattern. Steve, the de facto team leader, takes the lead. Sam, with paramilitary experience, goes second. Tony, with his lack of fighting skills other than fad workouts, goes next, then Sharon, who has begun training to fight but still prefers neighborhood walks. Behind her is Natasha, who doesn’t talk about her training but clearly has experience. Bucky, Steve’s childhood best friend and fellow soldier, takes the back.

They pass a bend in the trail, and Sam stops short. “You’ve _got_ to be kidding me.”

Steve glances back at him and teases, “I thought you wanted to get away from a while.” He approaches the cabin, where the door is kept closed with a padlock. He shoves the key in, and a moment the chain falls with a heavy, metallic clank. The door falls silently open. He steps inside.

“Phew,” Tony mutters. “Anybody else expecting a really loud creak?”

Sharon and Sam raise their hands.

Tony glances at them, then looks at something beyond them. “Is that an _outhouse?_ ”

Sharon swallows and hangs her head. “Three days and we’re out,” she says through gritted teeth. She shakes her head. “I was really looking forward to a break. A _real_ one.”

Tony nods. “I’ve never been so motivated to find someone in the woods.” He hefts his bag higher on his back and follows Steve into the cabin. “You’re _kidding_ me.”

Sharon’s shoulders fall, and she follows Tony inside. She frowns, first at the room, then at Tony. “What’s the kidding part?”

He waves his hands at the one-room cabin. “You see what I see.”

Sharon looks around again. After a couple seconds, she notices what Tony had checked for first – there are no electrical outlets. No electricity at all.

“We’ve stayed in worse,” Natasha reminds him, tossing her sleeping bag into a corner. “Sharon. Love of my life. Tell me you’ve got us covered.”

Sharon nods and sets her bag down. “Portable coffee maker is a go. I’ll have a batch in ten minutes or so.”

Natasha sighs contentedly.

Steve checks to make sure they’re all inside. “Okay,” he announces. “I know I told all of you that we’d have a couple weeks off, and I’m sorry that I called you back. It couldn’t wait. We have a limited window here. This is what we know. Jennifer Williams, Laurel Drake, and Margaret Isbert rented this cabin for a girls’ weekend. They knew the cabin was rumored to be haunted but didn’t believe in ghosts. They saw a shadow person in the cabin and took off running when both doors suddenly slammed opened.”

“I’d take the hint, too,” Tony mutters.

“Once they left the cabin, they got separated. Laurel and Margaret found a road and followed it to safety, but they reported that voices from the woods tried to lure them off the path. We don’t know what happened to Jennifer. We know she has basic survival training. Her mom was in the military, and the two of them used to go camping together. She could still be alive. Laurel and Margaret are adamant that she has the training necessary to survive, at least until the storm hits.”

The five listeners exchange looks. It’s unlikely that the friends would say Jennifer was dead, but they don’t share the friends’ confidence.

“But no one else has searched for her?” Natasha asks. “Is that because they’re familiar with what we’re up against?”

“They did a basic search,” Steve says, “but yes. The forest is renowned for hauntings and disappearances, going back to its discovery in the 1800s. Shadow people, possible wendigos or other cryptids, a haunted graveyard… People swear they see people from other time periods, even rangers claim that the paths will move. And obviously, we have reports of voices calling people from the woods… The park covers a lot of space, and it’s been used by criminals and the mob to dump their victims for as far back as we have records. Which is another reason why they didn’t look too closely – in the past, search and rescue volunteers have seen things they weren’t supposed to and disappeared. Or at least they think the volunteers disappeared because of human interaction.” He pauses. “I got the impression it was a matter of hope.”

Tony raises his hand. “Wendigos?”

Sharon looks over at him. “Someone who’s gone so hungry that they’ve resorted to cannibalism. Supposedly, something tells them to do it, a sort of demon. But once the person gives in, they can’t stop the need for human flesh, and they’re known as wendigos. You can kill them, but otherwise they’re unstoppable. Driven by hunger and all that. They develop abilities to confuse and manipulate their victims, and are supposedly faster and more agile than humans.”

Tony stares at her.

“I’ve started compiling files on what we’re likely to run into,” she admits.

“We were supposed to be on a break,” Sam reminds her. “Tell me you took a break.”

Sharon shrugs and opts not to answer. “Anyway. What’s the plan, Steve?”

“We’re going to follow her trail as far as we can today. We have comms. Sharon, I want you and Tony to stay in the cabin. We need to keep up to date on the weather in case the storm hits sooner than we think it will. Bucky, Natasha, Sam and I will go after her trail. Everybody uses the buddy system. No one goes anywhere alone. No excuses.” He claps his hands together. “Eat and use the facilities. We leave in half an hour.”

While the others dig into their packed lunches, Tony and Sharon instead set up their version of a command post, with Sharon helping Tony set up first. The two of them have done it enough times before that they slide into the pattern. As particular as Tony is about his equipment, Sharon has earned enough trust that she can unspool wires and cords for him. Without ithout any tables in the room, or chairs, or a bed, Tony arranges his various machines to runs tests and measurements on the floor in a semicircle around him, where he can monitor it all comfortably without moving very far. Once he’s set up, she moves to the other side of the room and sets up her med kits so she’ll be able to find everything quickly.

“We’ll be back before sundown,” Steve tells them. Remembering that the forest is too thick to know when the sun has set, he corrects himself. “When we can’t see to search anymore.”

Sharon nods. “I’ll get a fire going. At least we’ve got a fireplace, right?” Just as when she’d worked as a nurse and had trouble patients, she keeps her tone bright and cheerful.

Tony grumbles. 

“Coming home to a warm, haunted cabin,” Sam muses as he hefts his backpack onto his shoulders. “I like it. Will you have dinner ready for us, too?”

She makes a face at him. “I can’t cook for crap. My cooking would definitely kill us all.”

“She makes good hot dogs,” Steve offers, carefully not looking at her.

Sharon points at him, her eyes narrowed. “When his eyes get shifty like that, it means he’s lying. You guys be safe out there.”

Sam grins and nods, sweeping out of the cabin with Bucky and Natasha in his wake.

Steve stays behind for a couple seconds longer, looking as if he wants to say more but can’t in front of the others, and at length he swallows, nods to himself, and closes the door before he joins the others.

* * *

The trail is easy enough to follow at first. The young women had crashed into the woods with more attention to speed than care, leaving a path of crushed foliage and broken branches. Steve and the other three make good time as they follow it. Steve allows himself the hope that they might resolve this quickly, maybe even with relative ease.

And then the point comes where, as far as they can tell, it splits in two ways.

“Two sets of footprints that way,” Natasha says, studying the ground.

Steve nods and leads the way down the other trail.

That one, too, soon splits.

The four of them look at one another.

“Not to point out the obvious, but this isn’t good,” Sam says. He crouches on the ground, studying each trail. “One set of footprints down each. And they look like the same footprints.” He looks at the others. Very not good.

Natasha looks to Steve. “The path could split again down the line.” The implication is clear: The buddy system that Steve is so fond of may be insufficient.

His jaw clenches in a way the others have come to recognize as his most stubborn. “We’ll split up here, but after that, no splitting up. The forest wants to mess with us, we make it choose.”

“If it’s going to mess with us later, who says it isn’t messing with us now?”

Steve frowns. “This is the best lead we’ve got. We need to use it. Mark what trail you follow. Be back at the cabin by eight.” He checks his watch as they others check theirs, each making sure the watches are keeping time accordingly despite the forest. He nods to Sam. “Which way?”

Sam sighs. “For the record, I think Natasha is right.” At Steve’s steady look, he sighs again and points. “That way.”

Steve nods, gives Bucky and Natasha a brief goodbye, and follows Sam down the trail.

For the next five hours, they follow the trail as it fades and strengthens. They round a corner. Nearby, they see Natasha’s red hair and make out Bucky’s movements beside her. The two of them appear to have just come around a corner themselves. They are separated by enough trees and brush that if it weren’t for Natasha’s red hair, Steve and Sam might have missed them.

Steve lifts his hand and gives a shout, and the four of them pick their way through the thin brush that seemed to be composed primarily of thorned brambles to meet in the middle.

The four of them stare at each other.

“I have to ask,” Natasha says, “you _were_ following the footsteps in the right direction, correct?”

Sam gives her a withering glance. “Yes, Natasha. We could tell the toes were pointing this way. Are you sure _you_ were following them in the right direction?”

She fixes him with a withering glare of her own. “You should know the answer to that already.”

“Enough,” Steve says, his voice firm. “We’re being messed with.”

“Which means whatever it is intelligent,” Bucky agrees. “And watching us.”

Natasha turns back to the path they’d been following. “You said the paths have been known to move, right? Do we know of anything that can move paths _and_ duplicate them?”

They look at one another in silence.

“We need to regroup.” Sam looks at the trail behind Bucky and Natasha. “I’ll tell Tony and Sharon what we’ve found.” He presses his finger to his ear. “Tony, Sharon, come in.” He waits a beat, then repeats the message. Another beat, and he looks to the others. “Your comms are working, right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.” Bucky steps aside before Sam can kick him in the shins.

Steve turns on his own comm. “Sharon? It’s Steve.” He waits but hears nothing. “We need to get back to the cabin.”

Natasha looks upward through the trees as if trying to check the stars, then takes out her phone.

Steve nods in understanding. “We can’t trust our own trails,” he says thoughtfully. He frowns at her. It doesn’t look like she has the map pulled up. “What are you using?”

“Sharon and I were going over past cases of unexplained phenomena. We did a Find Your Phone for each other, just in case.”

“And you didn’t think to tell us?” Sam says, hurt. “I’d like to know you guys could find my phone if I wasn’t answering comms.”

Natasha shrugs. “You weren’t there. She’s working on a book of things we may encounter and protocols we can use with each one. The plan was to present it at our next meeting, but then this happened.” She sets off down Steve and Sam’s path. “Come on.” She turns toward the cabin, Steve close behind.

Bucky catches Sam looking behind them and turns.

“Just thinking,” Sam says. “That trail was too long for a girl to run at night without stopping.”

Bucky gives a slow nod of understanding. “What was it trying to draw us toward?”

Sam takes out his own phone, pulls up the map, and drops a pin. It might not lead to anything, but it doesn’t hurt. When they can get to the cabin, he can drop another pin and try to triangulate what the trails were trying to lead them. “Unless it was just messing with us,” he mutters.

Bucky shrugs. “Makes sense it wants something. What doesn’t, right?”

Sam doesn’t share his confidence. “Right.”

They reach the cabin a couple hours later, and like the rest of the woods, the place is eerily silent.

Steve hurries to the door and pushes against it, but it doesn’t open. He throws his shoulder against it, and it takes two hits before the lock gives way.

The other door, too, is locked. Inside are all of their things, and the workstations Sharon and Tony have set up.

But Sharon and Tony are gone.

* * *

“So you and Natasha,” Tony drawls as he makes some adjustments to his workstation. “What’s that about?”

She frowns at him. “How so?”

“She called you the love of her life. I thought you and Steve were a thing.”

“Steve didn’t have the coffee maker.”

“Ah.” He looks over at her. “So how did she know you had the coffee maker?”

“We’ve been meeting up. She, Fury, and Hill have some documentation about supernatural things we might encounter, but it’s more eyewitness statements than rundowns of what we might face. So we’ve been going over them together and trying to identify different supernatural entities, what they can do, and what we can do.”

“And the rest of us weren’t invited?”

“The rest of you didn’t approach her and ask for the information she might already have on hand. She thought it was a good idea. We were going to present it after the break when it was more put-together.”

He twists to look at her. “You’re really paranoid about preparation, you know.”

“Not all of us react as well as you do.” She shrugs. “Besides, back when I was a nurse, you learned that preparedness means survival. So now I try to be prepared.”

Across the room, the latch on the door lifts with a soft ping. The door opens without a sound.

Tony and Sharon look from the door to each other. “Okay,” he says. “Were you prepared for _that?_ ”

“The statements we got from Laurel Drake and Margaret Isbert say something more violent happened. But we know from experience that not all spirits are violent.”

“Right,” Tony nods. “It could just be coming home to put its feet up.”

Sharon’s first-aid box is launched through the air and hits the wall, its contents scattering to the floor. She jumps to her feet and moves away. “Maybe we should wait outside.”

Tony starts grabbing some equipment. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Tony.”

Her tone makes him look up, and he follows her gaze to see several of her medical devices hanging in the air. Syringes and small knives, all pointing at the two of them. He heads toward the open door, not pausing to pick up anything that falls. “Waiting outside sounds great.”

She follows close behind. They drop down the two steps, cross the small clearing outside the cabin, and instinctively stop several feet away from the trees before they look back.

“Okay,” Sharon says after several seconds. “This isn’t so bad. Both Laurel Drake and Margaret Isbert made it all the way to the ranger station. That’s assuming we even have to go that far – Steve and the others will be back soon. Really, all we have to do is stick together, and- Tony? Where- Where are you going?” She hurries to follow as he marches back to the cabin.

“It had better not be messing with my stuff,” he mutters. He crouches as they get closer, then creeps up to one of the windows. Slowly, he raises his head to look inside. He stares inside, then blinks, his expression going slack. “That son of a-”

He wheels around, and Sharon follows him inside.

“Okay,” Sharon says slowly. “This… might not be good.”

All of their things are gone.

But instead of being empty, the cabin is full of shadows, all of them shaped like human beings, all of them pitch-black to the point they almost look solid. None of them move, but despite the lack of movement, Sharon knows with the same certainty that water is wet that they are watching her and Tony.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The remaining team members split up to search for their missing teammates and the woman they've been sent to find. But Sharon and Tony have already found Jennifer Williams... or at least, something pretending to be Jennifer Williams.
> 
> As they search for answers, it's increasingly clear that they are being lured into traps and hunted. Cold, running out of time, and up against the unknown, do they even stand a chance of making it out alive?

Steve runs outside the cabin, followed by Bucky, and together they shout into the woods for Sharon and Tony as the gathering shadows give way to a deep, endless darkness.

Inside the cabin, Natasha turns on one of the lanterns Tony had designed; it’s guaranteed to not run out of power easily. It floods the room with white light that burns her eyes.

She blinks at the mess, studying the medical needles on the ground as if they were blood splatter, doing the same for Tony’s discarded electronics.

“Looks like he was trying to carry them out,” Sam says.

“And it looks like the needles fell separately from her case.” Natasha waves a hand behind her. “We have to assume-” She cuts herself off and shakes her head.

“Don’t let Steve hear you say that.” Sam’s voice is soft but grim. “I’ll keep trying to raise them on comms.”

“I’ll… talk to Fury,” she says slowly. “Something weird is happening here.”

She looks toward the front of the cabin, where Steve and Bucky talk together to work out what to do next. She watches them for several seconds, then goes out the opposite door.

Sam looks after her, then looks at the empty cabin. His face hardens. “Leave the black man alone in the haunted cabin in the damn woods? Seriously?” He realizes he’s talking to himself and stabs a finger toward a wall. “Don’t you dare answer.” He grabs another of Tony’s lantern and walks as quickly as he can out of the cabin after Steve and Bucky.

“We’re _not_ separating,” Steve says, his voice firm. “I know we need to-” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “If any of us disappear, the rest of us at least need to know it happened.”

“It didn’t do Sharon and Tony any good,” Bucky argues. “We need-” His gaze falls on Sam. “Where’s Natasha?”

Steve shakes his head. “I thought we all needed to separate.” His voice has an ugly, mocking quality. He swallows and gives his head a quick shake. “Sorry. Sorry.” He straightens, his air of command returning. “Sam, where is she?”

“Here.” Natasha walks around the cabin. “And we need to stay out of the cabin.”

Bucky strides forward, almost knocking Steve out of the way. He stops a short distance from her, but doesn’t reach out to her, looking her over as if checking for injuries. “Don’t go off on your own,” he says, his voice harsh.

She half-glares at him. The message is clear – she’s a grown woman who can take care of herself. But then she relents, remembering that Sharon and Tony and others are missing. She looks around Bucky at Steve. “The park didn’t report six other missing people. All of them stayed in the cabin.”

Steve’s face turns pale. “Six.”

“Apparently, the park thought they just left – people have to pay in advance to stay in the cabin. Their things were left behind.”

Sam looks back to the cabin. “Like Sharon and Tony.”

Natasha nods. “The rangers figured the people just got spooked and left in the middle of the night. He’s running down the other guests now, but it looks like the past four of the seven people before Jennifer Williams, and then a couple before that. The disappearances go back seven months.”

“So whatever’s doing this picked up steam recently.” Bucky shoves his hands in his coat pockets. “Hoarding for winter? Was there a similar pattern in past years?”

“None that anyone mentioned,” Steve says carefully, glancing at Natasha.

Natasha shakes her head. “Fury didn’t see anything like this in the past. Occasional disappearances, sure, but nothing like this.”

Bucky scuffs his foot on the ground. “So why not a similar pattern in past years?”

“Gaining power?” Sam suggests. “We should check the astronomical charts in case it’s something to do with that. And… historical anomalies?”

Natasha punches in the message on her phone. “Sent it off to Nick. He hasn’t heard from Sharon or Tony, by the way.” She lifts her eyes to Steve. “I suggest, when we find them, we put trackers on them. Something injected, perhaps. Under the skin, where they can’t lose it.”

Steve nods in agreement. “Bells aren’t enough these days. In the meantime, I’ll get our stuff, and we’ll camp out in the tree line. Sleep in shifts. One person up, three asleep. Draw straws to determine the order.”

Bucky grumbles and pulls up four blades of grass for them to draw from.

* * *

Tony grabs Sharon’s hand and pulls her away from the cabin, only pausing to try and grab some of the equipment he’d dropped earlier; his hand passes through it. He frowns, but his priority is to get them to safety. “Okay. Shadow people. The worst kind of ghost.”

“Arguably, the worst kind of ghost is the one you can’t see at all,” Sharon offers. “We don’t have any evidence that shadow people are threats.”

“Evidence _yet,_ ” Tony clarifies. “Do you want us to be the ones who break the streak?”

“Tony.” She tugs on her hand, forcing him to stop. “Didn’t you see anything weird about them?”

Tony looks over her shoulder, studying the cabin in dread. “Please don’t do this. I get it. You used to be a nurse. You want to help everybody. But remember that time we all talked about our favorite horror movie and you said yours was _Contagion?_ ” She frowns at him, and Tony shakes his head in disbelief. “That isn’t scary! I mean, it’s not _supposed_ to be. We don’t deal with the horrors of government failures. We deal with the horror of the unexplained.”

“Can you explain why one of those shadow people was wearing jeans?”

He blinks at her. “Wear- what?” He looks back to the cabin. “No. They couldn’t have been.”

“I think they were, though.”

“You _think_ they were.”

She points at the cabin. “One way to make s-”

One of the shadow people comes outside, only it isn’t a shadow. It’s clearly a woman, and she’s unmistakably solid and undeniably real. She’s wearing jeans, boots, and a dark green jacket over her T-shirt. “You two done yet?”

Tony drops Sharon’s hand, ignoring how much colder his hand is in his surprise. “Holy crap. We found Jennifer Williams.” His features darken. “Which would be better news if we knew where we were ourselves.”

Jennifer waves a hand at the cabin. “Here. Were you two looking for me?”

Tony and Sharon look at each other.

“You disappeared,” Sharon explains. “Your friends reported you missing.”

“I was trying to report my friends missing, but every path I take leads me back here.” Her tone, matter of fact and firm, turns thoughtful as her eyes glance to the side of the cabin. “Except the really, really creepy one.”

Tony and Sharon look at each other again.

“Can you show us the really, really creepy one?” Tony asks.

“Uh… sure?” She motions for them to follow her and leads the way around the cabin. “Not like you couldn’t find it on your own, though. If you looked.”

“We just got here,” Sharon explains. “Wherever here is.”

Jennifer turns back to look at Sharon as if she’s an idiot. “It’s the cabin,” she says, as if it’s obviously. “We know exactly where the cabin is. We just don’t know where anything _else_ is.” She shrugs. “I swear. If I’d known camping was going to be this much hassle...” She rounds the corner of the cabin and points. “There. You can’t miss it. Literally.”

“That,” Tony says, “is definitely creepy.”

A path stretches before them, like a tunnel carved through the forest. The bared claws of the tree branches curl along its sides and ceiling, but none stray into the path. At first, it appears that the path is glowing, but as Sharon looks more closely, she realizes that the air around the path is simply darker than everywhere else. Or at least, she thinks that’s it.

She and Tony look at each other.

“Let’s test that theory about every other path leading us back here,” Sharon suggests.

Tony nods in agreement. “Don’t want to waste the creepiest available option right out the gate.”

“Mind if I tag along?” Jennifer asks, a thread of hope in her voice. “It’s been kind of lonely here. And. Well.” She points at the pathway. “That isn’t helping my nerves.”

“Sure,” Tony says. “We were sent here to find you, after all. You’re sticking with us.”

Sharon, for her part, says nothing. She keeps her expression professionally polite, but she’s already planning how to talk to Tony alone.

She has to warn him that this isn’t Jennifer Williams.

* * *

They only know it’s morning because their phones tell them so. The sun won’t clear the mountains for several more hours. They only have their lanterns, flash lights, and phones to provide lights. Steve, the last person on watch, already has coffee and a light breakfast ready for them when they wake, and they eat and drink in silence.

Steve finishes first, impatient to get started. “We’re going to split up again today. One pair search for Sharon and Tony. The other pair search for Jennifer.”

“Let’s mix it up today,” Natasha suggests. “Bucky and Sam, you and me.”

Bucky and Sam each exchange glances, but no one declines, and in unison they stand and clean up the campsite.

Sam pulls up the map on his phone and drops a pin. He glances at Bucky, then turns to Steve. “We’re going to where we were yesterday. We want to see if it’s possible it was trying to lead us into something.”

“Like a trap?” Natasha sounds amused, but there’s an undercurrent of disbelief and even anger in her voice. “Seriously?”

“Relax.” Bucky punches Sam’s arm. “If a supernatural menace kidnaps Sam, it’ll give him back in no time.”

Sam rubs his arm. “Like it would keep you around?”

Natasha makes a face. “We’re going to talk about this later,” she warns Bucky.

“And you can punish me for it as much as you like.”

Sam claps his hands over his ears. “Hell no. I don’t want to hear this.” Sam gives Bucky a strong push with his boot. “ _Go._ ” He looks at the others over his shoulder. “Keep us updated over comms.”

“Check-in every half-hour,” Steve confirms.

Once the other two are out of sight, Natasha heads in the opposite direction. “First, the obvious. It was too dark for _us_ to get to the car, but they might have made it.”

“And never contacted us over comms?”

Natasha’s jaw clenches. “Maybe they couldn’t. It was too dark to follow the trail last night. Today will be different.” She says it as if she isn’t currently using a flashlight to see by, but her tone allows for no argument.

Steve surveys the area around them as if Sharon and Tony will magically appear. Naturally, neither of them do. He takes a breath. Maybe, just maybe, Natasha is right. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“You’ve been at that all night,” Jennifer says. She sits on the steps to the cabin, watching as Sharon and Tony emerge from the darkness of the trees. The air is getting lighter, though none of them can see any sunlight, and Tony and Sharon’s phones are in the cabin, their hands phasing through them whenever they try to pick them up. All they have on them are their comms, but without being able to raise the others on them, the comms are useless. “I’m going to guess you failed again.”

“I wouldn’t call it failure,” Tony corrects. “Since failure is the food of success.” He tugs at his coat. The temperature has only fallen since they got chased out of the cabin, and their coats are no match for the chill in the air. 

“You don’t seriously believe that, do you?” Jennifer gets to her feet and moves closer.

He frowns at her. “Don’t make us regret hauling our asses here to save you.”

Jennifer crosses her arms. “Tell me. When am I going to be saved? Last I checked, you’re as screwed as I am.”

“Give us a minute, would you?” Sharon asks politely. She grabs Tony’s elbow and pulls him toward the treeline. Checking to make sure Jennifer is out of range, she murmurs, “That isn’t Jennifer Williams.”

His eyes turn to slits. “I’ve been getting bitched at by- wait. Who _has_ been bitching at me?”

Sharon shrugs. “Something that wants us to think that’s her.”

He shakes his head. “How do you know it isn’t her, though?

“A couple things. The three of them got chased out in the middle of the night. They were wearing pajamas and barely had time to get their shoes on. She’s completely dressed. In a jacket that isn’t enough to keep her warm in this weather. She’s dressed for fall. And she’s… put together.”

Tony frowns at her.

She breathes on her gloved hands to warm them. Her fingers are so cold they ache. “Her hair was washed and brushed recently, not like someone who rolled out of bed. Her clothes don’t have wrinkles. Her makeup is perfect.”

He nods slowly. “And all of us look like crap after three days without a shower. She’s had more of that.” He turns to look at the creature pretending to be Jennifer. “So where’s the real Jennifer?”

Sharon takes a breath. “It wants us to go down that path and is taking on Jennifer’s image to make it happen. What if it did the same thing to Jennifer? Using one of her friends, maybe?”

“And the others said they heard her voice and others calling them to come into the woods.” He frowns as he thinks it over, then shakes his head. “Okay. What do you think is behind this?”

She holds up her gloved hands and starts tapping her fingers through the fabric. “Shadow people are supposed to be harmless – we know that even if we don’t know how they’re created.” She pauses. “It’s even possible they were trying to warn us. Get people out of the cabin before they could get caught like we did.” It’s something to consider, certainly. But for later, she admonishes herself with a shake of her head. “We’ve been separated from the others and can’t get to anything we recognize except the cabin.”

“And the creepy path that’s clearly a trap.”

“A lobster trap,” Sharon agrees.

His eyes narrow. “I’m familiar with Venus fly traps…”

“Lobster traps- you can get in easy but can’t get out. Basically, we’re already in a lobster trap.”

“And this Jennifer is our lobsterman,” Tony says, catching on.

She doesn’t have the heart to point out that this Jennifer would be the fisherman. He’s got the idea, and that’s the important thing. “So we have two options. Stay in this part of the trap, or go deeper into it.”

“Deeper into the trap.” He takes a deep breath. “Where the real Jennifer Williams might be scared out of her mind. If she’s even still alive.” That’s the thing about Tony that he doesn’t like a lot of people knowing, Sharon thinks. He might put on a tough, callous, macho act, but in his heart he’s a softie.

“And that could be us soon, too. It’s not like we have a lot of fighting experience. And not many tools to work with, either.”

Tony rubs his hands together to no avail. “So… just to recap, we’re basically saying we can delay the inevitable or rush into it, and we’ve decided to rush into it and maybe die instead of stalling for time.”

“Maybe overwhelm her when we have a better idea what we’re dealing with?” Sharon suggests. “It might buy us some time to figure out what to do next.”

He nods. “And we’ll see if we can go backwards once we’re on the clearly haunted lobster trap path.” He sighs. “Not like we’re getting anything done here.” He looks toward the cabin, clearly thinking of all the equipment he can’t use, can’t even touch.

He nods again, then turns to Jennifer. “Okay. We’ve talked it over. You’re right. The… mysteriously glowing tunnel that may be our only way out of here.”

“ _Finally,_ ” Jennifer says. She steps toward the tunnel, then hesitates, looking over her shoulder at them. “You guys go first?”

Sharon and Tony look at each other, knowing that means she’ll be behind them, able to strike at any moment, and that it will be that much harder to get the drop on her.

“Sure,” Sharon says with the bright, comforting smile of a nurse that hides all manner of lies.

* * *

Steve and Natasha don’t get far before they hear voices calling from the woods. Some sound almost familiar, others aren’t even close. They call out for Steve or Natasha or scream for help for themselves or others.

Natasha halts abruptly, listening. “That sounded like Sharon.”

“It isn’t her.” Steve’s voice is firm. He refuses to even look into the woods. “Whatever it is just wants us to get lost in the woods. Or wants to lure us into a trap. We stay on the road.”

“You never get answers when you follow the rules.” Natasha checks her phone, then looks upwards into the trees. The sun still hasn’t cleared the mountains, but the darkness is lightening. “I’ve got plenty of battery life. I can go look into it on my own if you won’t.”

“It isn’t safe,” he insisted. “And we shouldn’t split up- we have a buddy system for a reason.”

She shrugs. “A third of our team is gone. Our worst fighters. I say we take the fight to whoever took them.”

“But you don’t know what’s calling to us. You don’t know that it’s what took them.”

The two of them square off for several seconds; even though Steve is at least a head taller, he’s the one who relents. “We check on the van first, then we let the voices lure us into the woods.”

“Acceptable,” she says.

As she’d guessed, Sharon and Tony aren’t at van, and she has the audacity to flash him a grin as she jogs into the woods before the voices even renew their calls.

* * *

“You’re sure it was here?” Bucky presses. “This doesn’t look like the same path at all.”

“We’re right where the pin is.” Sam tilts the screen to show it to him. “So all we have to do is keep going in…” He turns the phone, watching the screen as he does so. “That direction.”

Bucky sighs and lets Sam take the lead. “Think the others are having any luck?”

“Only luck we’ve got these days is bad.” They walk for another hour or so before Sam lowers his phone and frowns at a rocky outcropping. Around it, the earth gently rises on a hill, but the rocks themselves are bare and seem darker than their surroundings. There’s no grass growing in front of them, and the ground is too hard and cold to reveal any prints. “How far away would you say the mountains are?”

“Hard to tell with all the trees. Can’t be too far off.” Bucky stops beside him and studies the stones before them. Even the air around the rocks feels menacing. “That can’t be good.”

Sam shakes his head without looking away. He holds up his phone screen to check on the direction, keeping half his attention on the outcropping as if expecting something to run out of it at any moment. He sighs.

“It’s pointing directly toward the rocks, isn’t it.” Bucky doesn’t move toward them.

“Yep.” Sam doesn’t move toward them, either.

Bucky sighs and holds a fist over an open hand.

Quickly, the two do a round of paper, rock, scissors, and Sam nods to himself in victory.

“Screw you,” Bucky mutters.

“You’ve got a tell.”

Bucky presses his lips together and moves quietly toward the rocks. Maybe it’s nothing, he tells himself. Just a wall of rock. Rock that only seems creepy because nothing’s growing on or around it. He plans out the next several minutes in his head as he moves carefully forward. They’ll end up trudging up the hill, and they’ll realize that there’s nothing to be worried ab- damn it.

There’s an opening in the rocks. It looks like the rocks themselves have been torn apart, but when he studies the studies the stone, he sees that parts of it have been worn smooth by something passing in and out. To wear the stones smooth, it must have passed through a lot for a very, very long time.

He moves closer inside, Sam behind him, both of them taking care to be as silent as possible.

They get hit by the smell at almost the same time. Sam grabs Bucky’s arm and pulls him away.

They fall back along the wall, panting in fresh air, and then look at each other.

“We’ve got to,” Sam says slowly. “Sharon and Tony might be in there.”

Bucky presses a hand to his gut. This is going to be bad. Nevertheless, he nods.

Together, with painstaking slowness, they creep into the opening, then through. Bucky waits in the darkness, but it’s too dark for his eyes to adjust, and he listens instead. His nerves start to sing, and still he waits. He ignores Sam fidgeting behind him, and continues to wait, and wait, and wait.

When he’s as sure as he can be that there’s nothing in the cave that’s hunting them, he turns on his phone’s flashlight.

Before them are Sharon and Tony, beside them is Jennifer Williams. They appear to be deep asleep, peaceful, and when he checks their vitals, their pulses are steady. 

He looks at a four bodies beyond them that he doesn’t recognize, and checks their pulses as well. Alive, but asleep. These must be some of the six people who had gone missing from the cabin who hadn’t been reported.

Beyond them were more bodies, their flesh stripped from their bones. Many of the bones are thrown into a pile nearby, but smaller ones are scattered on the floor to crunch underneath. The air is thick with the stench of rotting meat.

Whatever is hunting and killing people, they’ve found its nest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find the lairs of the creatures that are hunting them, but will they survive?

The path is even more of a trap than they’d thought. There’s no way to leave, no opening other than the one right ahead. The branches are as thick as walls, the twigs jutting out as sharp as knives. As they continue on, there are more and more vines woven in, laden with thorns. When they turn, they find the walls have drawn to a close behind them. They can only go forward, and the only thing they can control is the speed with which they fall deeper into trap.

“Weird how we couldn’t touch anything in the cabin, but we can touch these,” Tony notes, running a finger cautiously along a thorn. He’s dragging his feet, stalling for time, and Sharon has no problem with following his lead.

“You couldn’t touch anything in the cabin?” Jennifer asks. “That’s weird.”

Tony points at the tunnel around them in exasperation. “And this isn’t?”

Jennifer looks around. “Yeah. I guess I just got used to it, you know?” She shrugs. “I mean, what can you do, right?”

“Your optimism is inspirational,” Tony says drolly.

She looks at him in distaste. “You’re really a very rude little man, aren’t you.”

Tony draws himself up to his full height, as if that somehow helps him be taller.

“Let’s just find out where this goes,” Sharon suggests before the situation can escalate.

Jennifer gives Tony a pointed look. “I see who has the brains between the two of you.”

Sharon grabs Tony’s arm and drags him away before he can physically fight the being pretending to be Jennifer.

“It’s time,” Tony says.

She glances at him, recognizes the stubborn set of his jaw, and sighs. “Okay.”

Tony spins around and raises his fists. “You have _no idea_ how much I’ve been wanting to kick the crap out of you!”

Jennifer’s eyes widen. “I thought you were here to rescue me.”

Sharon watches Jennifer closely; the woman’s alarm doesn’t seem genuine. It’s an exaggerated gesture offered too late to be convincing. “We know you’re not the real Jennifer.”

Jennifer tilts her head to the side. She appears more curious and amused now, as if she’s deemed the frightened performance a bore. “Who else would I be?”

“Hellspawn,” Tony says, a little too quickly. “Evil nature spirit or something. Anything that likes nature is evil by default, so don’t even try to deny it.”

Jennifer narrows her eyes at him as if envisioning awful things she’ll do to him.

He’s going to get himself killed, Sharon thinks. To distract from him, she shifts her weight and holds her hand to her chin as she thinks aloud. The creature’s eyes dart to her. “Something we haven’t seen before,” Sharon says carefully. “I’m guessing something that’s been here a long time.”

“Something that removes us from our physical selves,” Tony continues. “We’re not in physical forms right now – that’s why we couldn’t touch anything before. That’s why we couldn’t see that path until we were like this. This tunnel isn’t physical, either.”

The creature pretending to be Jennifer smiles. “Closer than most people get.” The voice almost sounds as if it’s commending them. The creature tilts Jennifer’s head to the side, and Jennifer’s cheek slips downward as if it’s melting. She blinks as Sharon and Tony stare at it. A second later, the image solidifies, the skin once again appearing solid and flesh-like. “I’m curious how far you’ll get.”

“Meaning you don’t think we have a chance to beat you,” Sharon translates.

The smile widens too far, splitting her face from one end to the other in a thin, bloodless line. When she speaks, her teeth are long, pointed, faintly curved like an angler fish’s. “There’s no chance you can defeat me. I am older than your kind.”

“Not a wendigo, then,” Sharon says slowly.

The creature laughs. The sound is painful, like shards of glass scraping against bone. “No.”

“Because you’re older,” Sharon says with a nod. “And you have power over time itself.”

The creature’s eyes glint in amusement.

“Doesn’t talk enough for a sphinx,” Tony muses.

“This is more amusing than anticipated,” the creature says. “Perhaps I’ll keep you longer than I intended. Perhaps. In the meantime, I look forward to seeing what you do next.”

Sharon isn’t sure if the creature disappears when she blinks, or if the disappearance causes her to blink.

“Place your bets,” Tony says darkly.

“It isn’t necessary to guess what she is.” Sharon shrugs. “What matters is if we can figure out how to stop her and get out of the lobster trap, not necessarily in that order. Do you know how to fix the time problem?”

“Time sync. We’re slightly out of sync with everything else. It can’t be by too much – we still saw our belongings, and we hadn’t arrived too much earlier.”

“And you don’t have any tools to work with.”

“That, too,” he says, frustrated. He pauses. “You think you know what she is, don’t you? From your research.”

“I have some theories.” Sharon looks down the path as she considers. “She _can_ be defeated.”

“But not in the tunnel,” he says in understanding. At her nod, he offers her his arm. “Then let’s get going.”

They don’t have far to go before the tunnel ends in something like a cave. It smells like rich earth and mineral-laden water. The floor is covered in thick, deep moss. The stone of the cave walls have been carved into shelves, with the one closest lined with clay jars and pots no larger than a fist. Many have the lids on, but not all. There’s a wooden table in the middle, with a couple wooden stools scattered around, many worn smooth by use. On the opposite wall is a series of objects, backpacks and shoes, winter coats and tank tops, hairbrushes and journals. From their appearance, some of the objects go back centuries. They’ve been arranged artfully on stone shelves, ready to be admired. Trophies from her victims.

Tony swallows. “I thought we’d find her here, honestly.”

“Me, too,” Sharon admits. She looks around. There doesn’t appear to be an exit, and now that they’re in the room, even the tunnel behind them has disappeared, leaving only a smooth, stone wall.

“I could have sworn that was Tony,” a voice that sounds suspiciously like Sam says in Sharon’s ear.

“That was Sharon,” Bucky adds.

Sharon and Tony look at each other.

“Look for something we can use,” Tony instructs. He heads immediately to the far wall, while Sharon moves to the jars and pots the creature clearly uses, but for what. Tony presses a finger to an ear. “Sam? Bucky? Where are you? Are Steve and Nat with you?”

Sharon frowns, her hand hovering over a jar lid. “Tony? I think something inside this jar is screaming.”

* * *

“The signal’s bad,” Bucky said, covering his ears to try and hear better. His eyes search the shadows; he can’t listen for an approaching hunter if he’s focusing his hearing on the comm. “What’s screaming?”

There’s a long pause before Tony answers. “A jar.”

Bucky and Sam look at each other.

“Where are you guys?” Sam asks, keeping his eyes on Bucky. “And why are there screaming jars there?” He looks down at their bodies. “And are you sure you’re not unconscious right now?”

There’s another long pause. “Time sync,” Sharon says.

“We’re maybe a couple seconds after you,” Tony adds. “Closer to 1.8, if I had to guess. Where are you?”

“In a cave. Standing over your bodies.” Sam’s tone is pleasant, as if he’s discussing nothing more than a grocery list. “Looks like something’s planning on eating you.”

After a beat, Sharon’s voice crackles through. “Physically?”

Bucky and Sam look at each other again. “Is there any other way to eat?”

“Music is the food of love,” Tony supplies helpfully after a moment. “Or so I hear. Where are Steve and Natasha?”

“Gimme a sec.” Keeping an eye on Bucky, who has drawn his gun and is peering into the darkness, Sam speaks into the comm again, keeping his voice low. “Steve? Nat? Where are you guys? We can hear Sharon and Tony, but there’s some sort of time sync thing going o-” He pauses as Natasha sticks her head in.

“You can stop that,” Natasha says. Her voice is low and calm, but there’s a hint of something odd to it, unfamiliar. Foreign. “I could hear you from miles away, which means whatever is hunting us can hear you, too. Idiots.”

“I think we’re being hunted by the wendigo,” Natasha’s voice says over the comm. “Where are you?”

Sam swallows and draws his own gun on his other side, the one Natasha can’t see. He doesn’t dare look at Bucky; he doesn’t want to alert the doppelganger that he suspects anything. “Welcome to the cave, Nat. How’d you find us anyway?”

“What’s going on?” the real Natasha says in his ear.

“Did you track my phone?” Sam continues, knowing Natasha will figure out how to find them, if not what’s going on. “And don’t worry about the wendigo. We found it’s lair - it’ll be here soon enough, if it isn’t here already.”

Natasha, the one that isn’t Natasha, tilts her head and watches him.

Sam doesn’t think she bought his act. Damn it.

Natasha’s head keeps tilting. Farther. Farther. Far enough for her neck to snap. And it keeps going. Her lips spread in a straight, thin, too-wide smile as her eyes slowly turn black.

A shot rings out from Bucky’s gun, and when Natasha doesn’t fall back immediately, Sam adds his bullet as well.

Natasha disappears outside of the cave. 

“Were those gunshots?” Tony demands.

“Natasha-who-isn’t-Natasha,” Bucky explains, without really explaining anything.

“Try fire,” Sharon suggests. Screaming fills their ears. When their hearing recovers, Sharon is making calming sounds. “I found Jennifer Williams.”

“ _We_ found Jennifer Williams,” Sam corrects, looking down at the sleeping figure.

“Try and keep her distracted if you can’t beat her outright,” Tony says after a moment.

“And stay in the cave,” Sharon adds. “I think you’re save there. Saf _er._ Don’t touch any dirt or grass. Try to only touch stone.”

“Fire,” Bucky says, digging in his pocket for his lighter. “We can do that.” He runs back to the piles of discarded fabric as Sam watches the opening.

“Fire cannot defeat me,” a voice calls inside. It still has a hint of Natasha’s voice, but it sounds like thousands of other voices, too. Her tone is mocking, but the voices composing it… Sam can’t tell how, but he can hear their fear.

“We’ll just see about that,” Sam says, moving away from the entrance. Bucky presses a stick into his hand, cloth around one side and already set on fire. Sam almost drops it when he realizes the stick is actually a femur.

“It appears we have a siege,” the creature calls.

* * *

The voices calling them into the woods stop.

Both Steve and Natasha are smart enough to realize they’ve been lured in different directions, that the wendigo is playing with them, and that the only thing they’ve managed successfully is to stay together. But when the voices stop, they’re left alone in absolute silence.

The two glance at each other, then move instinctively to stand back-to-back. Natasha draws her guns. By now, the woods are light enough to see by, if only slightly.

Steve pulls out his phone. “It might be going to back up whatever’s attacking Sam.”

The seconds to wait for the map to load and pull up Sam’s location are almost interminable. At last, he points, and the two take off running.

* * *

“Why do we have a siege? I thought you said fire couldn’t hurt you,” Bucky returns, but there’s no answer.

Sam holds out an arm as Bucky steps forward. “It wants us to check.”

Tony curses over the comm.

Sharon’s voice seems unperturbed by Bucky and Sam’s exclamations of concern. “Do you need help? I’m almost done here. Jennifer? Do it.” They hear the sounds of smashing… glass? Ceramics? And then Tony’s voice again.

“I’m no MacGyver, but I _am_ better than-”

Tony’s body slurs something unintelligible.

Sam, still holding the torch, crouches down and checks Tony’s pulse as Tony’s eyelids flutter open. Around them, the other unconscious people are waking up, too, groaning and coughing. Sam checks on Sharon next. “If you’re up to it, I could use some help with the others.”

She’s unsteady as he helps her to her feet, but after a moment, she’s able to sit and crawl to check on the others.

“Sharon?” Steve calls over the comm when he hears her.

“Hi,” she croaks. “We’re gonna need water soon. Um. Wow, it smells.”

“Wendigo,” Sam explains.

She nods. “Natasha knows what to do about that. The other is going to be harder.” She pauses as she checks a man pulse and encourages him to rest. “Offer her a shrine.”

Tony leans against the wall. “What?”

“A shrine,” Sharon repeats. “Tell her she’ll get offerings and worship if she stops taking people.” She shivers and hugs herself, and Sam leans over to rub her shoulders. 

“You think that’ll work?” Natasha asks.

“I think it’s our best shot. If I had to guess, I’d say she teamed up with the wendigo to hunt. The wendigo wanted the meat, but she wanted the soul – no one will worship her, so stealing souls was the closest she could get. Fire might keep her away, but I think she’s right. It’s not enough to kill her. Giving her offerings might convince her to stop killing people, though. And it might also give her a reason to protect this place and the people in it, though.”

A laugh fills the cave, sounding like a flock of birds, echoing against the walls and inside their heads. Sam and Bucky fall to their knees, dropping the torches as they clutch their heads. One of the victims Sharon and Sam haven’t checked on yet, rolls over and vomits.

What follows is only a whisper. “I accept. For now.” And then, nothing.

Slowly, Sharon recovers her breathing. Around her, the others recover, too.

After several minutes of breathing and quietly checking in on each other, Steve’s voice comes in over the comm. “Found the wendigo.” His voice is strange, as if he’s not sure what he’s dealing with but is determined to power through. “It won’t be a threat anymore.”

“Send some ambulances to my location,” Sam tells him. “Seven. Maybe nine, so me and Bucky don’t have to walk out of here.” He groans and lies down. “I say Fury’s treating us to ice cream after this.”

“Hot chocolate,” Tony corrects. “Too damn cold for ice cream.”

* * *

With only one day of no food or water, Sharon and Tony are dismissed from the hospital after a couple hours. Steve and Bucky wheel them down to the cafeteria, where Sam and Natasha have prepared several plates of hot food.

“Storm’s due to hit tonight,” Steve says, holding Sharon’s hand and helping her to a seat. They both know she doesn’t need it, but neither of them are inclined not to offer help nor to decline it.

Bucky looks down at Tony. “No,” he says, refusing to help easily enough.

Tony shrugs and pushes his wheelchair forward. “Is that lasagna?” He reaches over the table and digs in without waiting for the others. He groans in satisfaction.

“Airport’s already shut down,” Steve continues. “Nothing we can do. So I booked us a hotel. Technically six rooms. However we want to use them is up to us. And yes, there’s a sauna.”

Sharon gives a contented sigh and looks over the table at Natasha. “Let’s live there for the foreseeable future.”

Natasha clutches her cup of coffee tight in her hands and gives her a thumbs up before downing half of it in one go.

“I talked to the park staff. They think it’s silly, but it might be a good story for tourists, so they’re going to set up a small shrine. Jennifer Walters is on the mend, as are the others. Fury will send a forensic team to the cave when the weather’s calmed down to try and identify all the wendigo’s victims.”

“How’d you figure out the fire thing?” Tony asks between bites. “And the worship thing?”

Sharon shrugs. “She dropped some hints. She was older than humans. The control over time – not much, but enough to displace us. And you were the one who talked about her and nature. When you said that, I realized that if she had control over nature, it would explain the reports of paths moving. Put them together, and there are only so many threats that work on ancient, powerful beings.”

“Fire,” Sam say in understanding.

Sharon nods. “And even today, we tell stories about gods, or creatures with god-like abilities, who want to be worshiped. Or gods who were brought to the new world by their followers’ beliefs. That was more of a shot in the dark, though.”

Tony points his fork at her. “I want to see that book you and Nat have been working on.” He pauses. “After the sauna. I’m gonna sleep in there.”

“Please wear clothes,” Natasha pleads.

Tony gives her a look that says that isn’t in his plans at all, and takes another bite.

“The best part about this storm,” Sam says, grabbing a bowl of noodles, “is that not even Fury can send us on a mission in this mess. We finally get a vacation.”


End file.
